


Cloudy

by cruisedirector



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Crushes, Episode Related, Episode: s01e03 Parallax, Episode: s01e06 The Cloud, F/M, Giddiness, Holodecks/Holosuites, Maquis, Mirror Universe, Native American Character(s), POV First Person, Romance, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-12-21
Updated: 2000-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chakotay's floating on air even though he's stranded in the Delta Quadrant with only a medicine bundle for company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cloudy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set around the era of "The Cloud." It's is actually a third season story, though the setting is first season, sometime between "State of Flux" and "The 37s." I wanted to recapture what falling in love with Janeway was like--for Chakotay, and for me. I wrote this for Diane, Meri and Deborah, my unholy trinity of Graces.

I'm in trouble.

I'm supposed to be on the bridge, but I'm hiding in engineering, pretending to need an update on our dilithium refinery project.

Ten minutes ago, Tom Paris stopped me in the corridor and asked, "Did you just beat B'Elanna at hoverball or something?" When I raised an eyebrow, he told me I was grinning like a fool. And this morning, at breakfast, Kes told me I seemed very...energetic. I think Kes can read us a lot more than she lets on.

But I can't talk to her. I can't talk to B'Elanna right now, sure as hell can't talk to Tuvok, and I'm the closest thing this ship has to a counselor. I guess I have to talk to myself. I haven't tried to keep a personal log in a long time, but if I don't talk to someone, it'll kill me.

She'll kill me.

Kathryn.

I can't go to the bridge because every time I think her name, I feel my face getting hot, and that stupid smile comes back. If we were hailed by hostile aliens, I'd probably start grinning like a fool as soon as she said, "This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the starship Voyager," in that voice of hers. She'd get up from her chair and stride toward the viewer, stick her chin out, put her hands on her hips...and I'd forget to concentrate on the enemy, because I'd be watching her.

Sometimes, on duty, I have to stand up because I feel like I'm going to float out of my seat, no matter how well the artificial gravity's working.

I've been trying to make it go away by focusing on reality. I serve under her, and she has a lover she's trying to get home to. The last thing she needs is for me to start mooning over her. Somehow it doesn't make a difference. I feel myself sprinting down the hall, bouncing on the balls of my feet in the turbolift--nothing can bring me down.

I was smitten practically from the moment I met her. She's so strong, and so beautiful--I kept studying her when I should have been worrying about the Kazon and the Caretaker. Then standing on her bridge, listening to her give the order to destroy the Array...I felt exhilarated. Everyone else was panicked or anguished about being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, but not me. I didn't know then what was going to happen--whether she would throw me in the brig or make me scrub the deuterium exhaust conduits for the next several decades. I didn't really expect her to put me on her crew. I never even considered that she might ask me to be her first officer, not until the moment she made her intentions clear.

Even so, I knew meeting her was the first good thing to happen to me in I can't remember how long.

Of course I thought about her that night. Impossible not to. I lay in Commander Cavit's quarters, too exhausted to rest, my ship gone, my crew furious with me for getting us stuck on a Starfleet vessel--Seska cursing my name, B'Elanna avoiding me, Ayala sobbing for his kids, Tom Paris coolly sizing me up. From this distance, I could finally start to admit that the Maquis was probably doomed, the DMZ a lost cause. My father was dead, my people already starting to scatter. What else was I going to think about if I wanted to soothe myself to sleep? I had nothing to anchor me anymore...nothing except her.

That first contact on her bridge. Kathryn Janeway, in my face. I'd seen her on the viewscreen earlier, but hadn't really looked; she'd been a uniform, not an individual. When she told her crew to lower their weapons, she was still a Starfleet captain. Then she marched up to me after I started to threaten Paris, gave me a body block. Her shoulder touching my chest, her breasts brushing against me. Jaw set, eyes narrowed, hair taut as metal. Tough, assertive, lovely woman.

We met as equals for that one second, before I stepped back. The first time of many. Always willingly. I will never forget that she treated me as a partner while I was a criminal.

It surprised me that she invited me to accompany her to see the Caretaker. Later I learned it was because she'd done her homework, she'd read my file very thoroughly--she thought she knew what kind of a man I was, and went with her instinct to trust me. I wonder if she knew I'd back her decision to destroy the Array? She never asked me to. I'd been composing my list of reasons why she shouldn't throw my crew in the brig, assuming that I only had the freedom of her ship because I'd kept Tuvok safe on mine. She gave me this job over Tuvok's objections.

It's been a long time since anyone made me feel this good about myself. I couldn't help fantasizing about her, dealing with the emotional high in terms of physical pleasure, but I didn't think it meant much at first. I wanted to be close to her, and I wanted to make her happy--even so, I realized I didn't know anything about her. I had no idea what she was like off-duty, I couldn't tell if she found me attractive...I didn't know then whether she had a lover back home or even on the ship. I had only her face and her voice, and the shape of her body in uniform. The way she carries herself. How easily she touches people--I could readily project that in terms of what she'd be like with someone romantically. And I can imagine how her hair would look out of that bun, and how it would feel spilling into my hands or across my chest. I've gotten off with that vision in my head--Kathryn Janeway leaning over me with her hair cascading onto my skin--

Ahem. Or maybe I mean Amen.

I'm trying to feel ashamed for thinking about her like this, but I'm just getting excited again. I can't even muster the appropriate guilt when I catch myself stealing glances at her hair, or her ass. Because it's not lust--her physical appeal is the most irrelevant aspect of what draws me to her. It's not her position either, although I gravitate towards powerful women. I've had crushes on captains before. I thought this one would fade in a few days, though, when we started fighting about integrating the crew, and she turned Starfleet on me. I didn't expect her to take my suggestions for Maquis officers seriously, so she really shocked me when she gave Torres the job of chief engineer. Not just the fact that she did it--I figured she might decide to make some concessions for me to keep the Maquis in line. But she really went out of her way with B'Elanna, and with Tom too. She didn't just win them over--she converted them.

She's nothing like I expected, like no other Starfleet captain I've ever met. Even arguing with her is a revelation--she always listens, rarely loses her temper, and she concedes so gracefully that it's easy to do the same. A couple of times I've wanted to hug her after a dispute, because of the way she defuses potential conflicts--I'm left with lots of energy and positive feeling, sometimes I want to direct it back to her.

We haven't argued that much because I've questioned very few of her decisions. It seemed important when we were trying to integrate the crews not just for it to look like I supported her, but for her to feel that I really did; I knew it would show if she trusted me, and the crew would respond accordingly with confidence in me and the rest of the Maquis. I was impressed as hell with her those first few days, when everything was in chaos, so I tried to give her some relief when we had a few seconds away from the mess--joked around with her, flirted a little. I could tell she liked my smile, she went out of her way to crack me up. I clung to that in private, though it was probably because I was the only person she could get a real grin out of, in the circumstances.

Now I can't stop, which should worry me. But I feel great. Every time I think about her, that grin comes back, and I feel like I can do anything at all--fly the ship, fix the replicators. Teach Neelix to cook. The adrenaline's pumping, it makes the work easy. This has never happened to me before, at least not since I was a teenager, and then it was kid stuff. I catch myself touching the bulkheads sometimes just because it's her ship. If Paris knew that, I'd be a dead man.

She surprised me most when she asked about finding her animal guide. I'd brought up the subject impulsively, to feel her out about unconventional methods of counseling--I can't even remember what was troubling her that morning. I expected her to nod and tell me to set up some kind of support group for the crew. When she said she wanted to know more, I was ready for her to pull a Torres on me and leave the room shouting about my crazy rituals, or to react like Seska and scorn the entire tradition. I figured at best she was humoring me, so she could come up with her own condescending scientific explanation for the experience. Still, I couldn't help bounding into her office with my medicine bundle, and grabbing her hand as we sat on her floor, like a kid on a date. Date. I'm never going to forget that she used that word, even if she didn't mean it. That made me invincible for hours.

I remember how I felt watching her face while she entered the trance. As soon as I saw her go under--the first time I really saw Kathryn, without any of the trappings of her rank or role--I was lost. Or maybe I mean found. Looking at her, seeing that peacefulness come over her features, I felt at peace myself for the first time in years. She's not afraid of change, or losing herself, even disconnected from her home and her people--she welcomes new experiences, with joy and wonder. I wanted to sit and watch her all day. How could I help but feel like I was hers? It scared the hell out of me.

If only I could shake the feeling that she's my destiny. Like a bad holovid. Lost in the Delta Quadrant to find each other...why does that seem right, as if this is the way things were always supposed to be? With my whole crew here, B'Elanna running the engines and Tuvok back at tactical, I have a sense of closure. It feels complete, like a family, almost, with Kathryn Janeway at the head, and me beside her...I'm turning into a romantic idiot.

Still, like that evening on the holodeck. I'd gone to shoot some pool and hang out--I guess I wanted to be around other people to stop thinking about her too much. I couldn't believe it when she waltzed in with Harry, as if hanging out in bars with crewmembers was a casual occurrence for her. She played along so naturally, though I couldn't tear my eyes from her when that gigolo said he wanted to make love to her. She was playing a game of her own, though, with Paris, and with me--Commander Chakotay, your stick. Uh-huh.

I dreamed about her that night. Not flirting. Straightforward, the way she usually is. No games. We were in her ready room, she smiled at me, then she put her hand on my arm, as is becoming her habit when she wants my undivided attention. And kept smiling when I put my arms around her, and kissed her. No talk of duty or consequence. The uniforms melted away. I gave myself to her, everything in me, not like with Seska where I was always trying to remind myself that it was just screwing. When I woke up, with a headache and a mess all over the sheets, I had to rush to get to the bridge on time--and guess who I ran into on the way? She invited me to breakfast, she seemed unconcerned about the schedule when I used duty as an excuse for turning her down. Alone in her private dining room would have been impossible then...I almost grabbed her right in the corridor, listening to her describe all the lush, sensual foods she was dreaming about. I had to concentrate on vacuum-packed oatmeal and take off for work, I didn't trust myself not to blurt out everything, otherwise.

It had to have been obvious on my face every time I looked at her. I thought everybody would figure me out right away, but I don't think they realized what they were seeing. Not even Seska, who accused me of slavish devotion, but didn't seem to realize where it stemmed from until her last moments on Voyager. Now that she's gone, I can admit what a relief it is to have her off the ship and out of my life. She would have made things hell for both of us. I don't want any past reminders of the reasons I don't deserve Kathryn Janeway. I just want to deserve her from now on.

My fantasies about her are getting more elaborate, and more ridiculous. I imagine that Neelix will concoct some drink that will give her a hormonal overload, or we'll catch some alien sex disease like the one that afflicted Picard's Enterprise, and she'll turn to me as the safest person around. I suppose we could get stuck in a warp bubble together, or get switched with our counterparts in an alternate universe like that nasty one Federation crewmembers have visited before. Maybe Kathryn's evil twin would enjoy having me, well, serve under her. Maybe I could sneak into one of her holonovels disguised as a character. One or both of us could always get taken over by an alien consciousness, that happens more often than you'd think, but I wouldn't want it that way--I want this to be real. I can wait until she realizes that letting me love her to pieces would be better for her and for the ship than mooning over her dog-sitter forever.

I'm hiding in engineering because of what happened this morning. Such a little thing, and so silly--I'm sure she's forgotten all about it. Just an accident. We were in the turbolift, something went wrong with the power grid, and we jerked to a halt and fell against the side of the lift. I caught her sort of on top of me, with both her elbows in my hands. She was smashed up against me with her breasts pressing into my chest, and while we were shaking to a stop, she was balanced on my groin. After the lift stilled, for a minute, I couldn't let go--I couldn't even look away from her. I was trying to come up with a joke, but the only words which stuck in my mind were the ones I knew I couldn't say.

So I didn't say anything, just kept staring at her face inches away from mine, and it suddenly occurred to me that she might be having the same problem right then--she might not trust herself with me, just for a few seconds. She's human, and aware that I'm attracted to her, at least on the most superficial level--not that she dwells on it. But every once in awhile I'll get a flash from her, a split second where I see her really looking at me, before she shuts down again. This was like that, only we both knew that the other noticed, this time. It got difficult to breathe. I was positive that the moment she came to her senses, she would be furious with herself and me, and shut down--she does that when she gets defensive, sometimes she even lashes out. She knew, I knew, the situation was no longer tenable.

You know what she did? She smiled at me.

OK. She probably smiled because it didn't mean anything much to her. Just trying to cover her embarrassment and get us back to light, shallow banter. It's too soon, she hasn't resolved anything yet about her relationship to the crew, even to me, it probably hasn't really sunk in yet that she's never going to see her lover again--she must be used to being away from him for long periods. She's probably flattered that I occasionally react to her as a woman. She thinks this morning was a momentary aberration on my part. Nothing really inappropriate since it doesn't mean a damn thing.

And here I am, hiding below-decks, because I'm delirious. Beguiled by the scent of her hair, terrified lest I reveal my feelings in some dramatic physical way. I can't decide whether I want to follow her around with excuses that have to do with work, or avoid her, so I can think about her, undistracted by the possibility that she'll catch me daydreaming. I know it's hopeless, I don't even have serious designs on her. Still, much better to have her in love with a man who's 70,000 light years away than to worry about anyone else on the ship, or even actually to have to take action myself. Not now, not yet. She'd make me think about all of the problems, while I'm so bowled over by her that my emotions take precedence over the facts. Starfleet protocol, Mark, Seska, Voyager's unique circumstances, considerations of command be damned. I'm not ready to try to come to terms with my feelings. I'm too happy.

I don't have any reasonable expectation that I can have anything more with her than what we've already got together, not unless things on the ship change radically, or we get stranded on a planet somewhere. Sooner or later, if this is real, we'll have to deal with all the conflicts, the reasons it won't work, and I'll come crashing down from this high. It's inevitable, I guess.

But it's so hard to believe right now, as I head back toward the bridge, where I know she's waiting for me. Just to see her, sit beside her while she works, even watch the bridge for her in her absence--it's more than enough. Maybe it doesn't get any better than this. Maybe I couldn't take it if it did.

I'm grinning again.


	2. Overcast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> August said, "Write a vignette of the scene that first got you hooked on J/C. Bonus points if you can tie this scene in with the current canon." I didn't know I had this lurking in me until I started it; it's for August, and for Roses who asked for a quote from "Parallax" a few days ago and got me thinking about it.

I'm in trouble.

I'm supposed to be on the bridge, but I'm taking a stroll through the lower decks, checking up on crew morale and trying to get a sense of whether we have any Starfleet/Maquis conflict brewing. I don't think so. Despite the concerns which Tuvok expresses to me daily, I've seen no evidence of hostility along those lines. In fact, given our circumstances, I've seen remarkably little evidence of hostility at all.

Not even from him.

"If things had happened differently and we were on the Maquis ship, would you have served under me?" I almost answered him, even with the double entendre which I'm not sure he recognized until the moment the words were out and that split-second grin lit his eyes. I'd been anticipating the question, and would have answered it honestly if it weren't for that - his smile, and how I reacted to it. I'm not sure I'd seen him smile before, other than for a brief moment when I acknowledged that he'd been right about B'Elanna Torres. That was business.

This is something else.

Kes stopped in my ready room yesterday with flowers she had managed to grow from cuttings we had in cold storage. I had just come from the bridge, where we'd been...all right, he and I been flirting, though ostensibly we were arguing about how much replicator energy we could spare for nonessentials like coffee and chocolate. I argued for keeping the crew's spirits up, but he knew perfectly well it was my own need for coffee that motivated me. I have to remember to be careful how much we say on the bridge - Tom Paris kept glancing back at us suspiciously. I wrote that off as just his legendary dirty mind at work until the Ocampa gave me the same look when we were alone.

"I brought these to brighten your room, but you seem very happy, Captain," she told me.

I am happy. Considering that I'm in the Delta Quadrant, with no idea how to get this ship home and no one from Starfleet to advise me, it's almost frightening how happy I am. I like being out here, I like being in charge.

I like him.

Chakotay.

I wish he had another name. Since there's only one, it feels too private - not appropriate for use in front of the entire crew, though most of the Maquis call him that. I feel unduly formal when I call him "Commander" during private conversations, but sometimes my voice sounds too husky to me when I say his name. I wish I had told him to call me by my first name before I made him my first officer; now it would seem like a breach of protocol to do so, and I feel shaky enough about protocol when I'm with him. This is the man I was sent to arrest. A terrorist. He knows all of Starfleet's systems, and could use them against me if he chose.

Looking at his smile, it is impossible for me to believe that he would.

Is it just for me, that smile? Sometimes I think it is, then I think I must be flattering myself. I'm a Starfleet captain. I represent the institution he blames in large part for what happened in the DMZ. I don't know him well enough to tell him that I understand his pain - I've had my share of suffering at the hands of the Cardassians, I lost my father in the same war. Sometimes, though, I feel as if he must know. I sense no resentment from him, not since I put Torres in charge of engineering and freed Tuvok from his obligation to report on Maquis activities he observed during surveillance. I know Chakotay agreed with my decision to destroy the Array and save the Ocampa even if it meant stranding us all out here, but that doesn't explain his allegiance. Not completely, at least.

I wish he were just a little less attractive.

Does the crew notice? I don't mean what he looks like - I know they notice that, I've heard them talking. I only worry that someone has noticed me noticing. Under normal circumstances it wouldn't necessarily be a terrible thing for a captain to fraternize with the first officer, but these are anything but normal circumstances. He and I barely know each other, there's no end to this mission in sight, no Starfleet backup, and there's the not-insignificant matter of his criminal record. Also, there are rumors about him and one of the Bajoran engineers, and about him and Torres, though I find the latter hard to believe - he treats her more like a junior officer than a friend. Of course, it's possible to treat someone one way in public yet completely differently in private. I'm sure Tom Paris is thinking that when he spies on us on the bridge. I have to remember to be careful.

I can't even explain my decision to trust him. I could have made Tuvok my first officer; the Maquis don't trust him and the Starfleet crew barely knows him, since he was on Chakotay's ship, but it's certainly the choice Starfleet would have recommended. There are more Academy graduates on this vessel than there are Maquis, and I'm sure I've upset many of them by promoting two renegades to top positions. It might have been more politically expedient to move the Maquis up slowly, but Chakotay convinced me they deserved better than that, and he was right - at least, so far. He's not planning a mutiny.

Who is he?

And why am I obsessing about it?

I wish I had someone to talk to. I miss Stadi - despite out difference in rank, we were friendly, and it was difficult for me to hide anything from her because she was a Betazoid. She always asked, never told - right now I can picture her cocking her head to the side and saying, "Do you have a little bit of a crush on him?" And me giving her the death glare, before rolling my eyes and smiling. Yes, I have a little bit of a crush on him. A very little bit. Not my usual type at all. Mark would laugh at me if he were here.

Mark's not here. I wish I felt something stronger than vague loneliness about that.

Mark has been my best friend for years. He understands me better than anyone I have ever known. I miss that so much - I miss him telling me I'm being too hard on myself. Mark's interests are not very fashionable among Starfleet officers - philosophers spend too much time debating ethics instead of making choices. I suppose Chakotay's spirituality reminds me of that...not that I really know anything about his spirituality, just what little he's shown me, but I like to think he's like Mark in that regard. He certainly isn't what I expected from a rash, impulsive, rebellious Maquis terrorist. In fact, the longer I know him, the harder it is for me to make that label fit.

I'm thinking about him instead of Mark again. I'm refusing to let myself fantasize about him, but I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep that up.

This is too dangerous. I could be wrong, for one thing, about whether the way he looks at me means anything - maybe he just likes to look at women, or maybe he has a thing for senior officers. If he is involved with Seska, or Torres, it could have serious consequences if someone thought I was interested in him. And even if he's not involved with anyone, the risk of harrassment is too high...as well as the risk that any relationship between us could compromise the ship's safety. Captains and first officers have to make life-or-death decisions about one another. I suppose I had it in the back of my mind that forming a personal attachment with him might stop him from rebelling, but I don't want him to go along with my decisions for the wrong reasons, either. At least I don't think I do. If we run into the Borg out here, I'll take support any way I can get it.

I'm trying to feel ashamed for thinking about my first officer like this, but I'm just getting flushed and fidgeting. I can't even muster the appropriate guilt when I catch myself stealing glances at his mouth, or his hands. Because it's not lust, really - his physical presence is only one aspect of what draws me to him. Part of it is the way he's kept his crew in line. Part of it is the way he's repressed his dislike of Tuvok and Paris, the two people he has to work with most often in his new position. I like the way he argues; he's forceful, he doesn't back down unless he's honestly been won over, but there's nothing petty, no grudges, no bitterness. When I think about it, Chakotay has questioned very few of my decisions. When we were trying to integrate the crews, he might have chosen not just to look like he supported me, but for me to feel that he really did. I tried something similar: I knew it would show if I trusted him, and the crew would respond accordingly with confidence in him and the rest of the Maquis. In those first days, his support was a great relief to me - he joked with me, he flirted a little, he made me feel like life on this ship would become natural for all of us.

Now I'm starting to depend on his friendship, which should worry me. But it doesn't. When I catch myself thinking about him, I smile - when I enter a room I find myself looking for him. It makes the work easier, it gives me something to look forward to. I know there are things he can teach me about his culture and his traditions - something I never had with Cavit, who was an efficient officer but boring as a bulkhead. And there's something archetypal about myself and Chakotay, as I realized the last time I went to the holodeck to run my Western holonovel and realized instead that I'd better delete the damn thing before someone found it. I don't think being kidnapped by an Indian is a good role to play right now. I also deleted the one about the legal officer who helped her handsome prisoner escape. I can't afford to turn into a romantic idiot.

I dreamed about him the other night. Nothing unsettling, we were standing on the side of a hill overlooking a valley full of people. He said, "It's a big responsibility," and I said, "We can do this." Then we walked down the hill and a huge bird flew over our heads, which turned out to be Voyager, so we jumped onto the landing struts and climbed inside the ship even though we knew it meant we would never see the planet again. When we got inside, I told him I was glad he came. He smiled at me and I knew it was the right decision.

I'm not sure what it means. I could probably ask Chakotay, but that might be more dangerous than the dream.

I'm roaming the ship now because of what happened this morning. Just an accident--I'm sure he thought nothing of it. We were in the turbolift when the power grid failed and we stopped abruptly. I fell on top of him against the side of the lift, and for a minute we were stuck like that - holding on to one another, staring at each other, It would have been all right if I'd been able to look away. I got a glimpse of whatever it is that I see in his smile, only this time he wasn't smiling, he looked very serious, whatever it was he was going to say. For a minute I had trouble breathing. Whatever was making him so earnest, I wanted to diffuse it. So I did the only thing I could think to do - I smiled at him.

And he smiled back like I'd given him the sun. It should have scared me - I've barely begun to define parameters about our relationship to one another, and to the crew, it hasn't really sunk in yet that I may never see my home or family or Mark again, I'm used to being away for long stretches. I'm sure this morning was a momentary aberration, not really inappropriate because it doesn't mean a damn thing.

But here I am, pacing my ship, wishing I wasn't thinking about how his arms felt around me for those few seconds, and hoping I don't forget. I can't decide whether to go back to the bridge where maybe he'll smile at me, or continue to hide down here where it won't matter if I'm blushing. I know it's hopeless, I'm the captain, and I'm not sure I'm really interested. Still, much better to have a crush on my first officer than on someone down in the ranks whom I don't have any excuse for seeking out.

Starfleet protocol, Mark, Seska, Voyager's unique circumstances, captaincy be damned. I'm not ready to try to put labels on my feelings.

I'm just enjoying them.


End file.
